The quality of police training academies in Ohio and the need for stronger statewide training standards are among the issues an attorney general's committee is considering as it explores possible changes to the way Ohio trains police officers.

The quality of police training academies in Ohio and the need for stronger statewide training standards are among the issues an attorney general’s committee is considering as it explores possible changes to the way Ohio trains police officers.

Attorney General Mike DeWine created the group last year after several fatal police shootings and protests of those shootings in Ohio and nationally.

Committee chairman Reggie Wilkinson said Thursday the committee has been looking at whether all prospective police recruits should have to pass similar background checks before training begins, such as polygraph tests.

Background checks currently vary depending on the academy an individual applies to.

Wilkinson said the committee is also exploring what to do about low-performing academies and whether academies are serving every region properly.

Foreclosures during the Great Recession added to thousands of blighted properties in Columbus. But, a state program helped fund demolition of many of those houses and apartment units.

A report by state Attorney General, Mike DeWine, says grant funds helped Columbus and Franklin County tear down more than 1,200 blighted houses and apartment units during the past two years. City spokeswoman Cynthia Rickman says the demolitions ‘significantly’ helped some neighborhoods.

“They’re always glad to see those go because obviously blighted properties breed crime. And so that’s one way to rid crime as well as a blighted eyesore on a property then it makes all the difference to the folks in our neighborhoods,” says Rickman.

The Columbus and Franklin County land bank received $10-million in state grants to help fund the demolitions. Rickman says the city still counts 5,900 vacant properties but not all of those properties are slated for demolition. Rickman says demolitions hinge on whether the city or county can obtain ownership of the blighted properties.

“Well it was significant and it was unprecedented, the volume of demolitions that we were able to happen and it certainly helped make a dent, a nice dent in demolishing properties,” says Rickman.

DeWine added that each of Ohio’s 88 counties received a portion of the $75 million in grant money based on their percentage of foreclosures from 2008 to 2011. The program expired in December. It was funded by a national settlement with major mortgage servicers.

Four of Ohio’s statewide officers expressed opposition to a proposed ballot measure that would legalize marijuana in the state.

The measure’s backers say they envision a network of growers sending the product to designated testing facilities near Ohio colleges and universities for safety and potency screenings. The pot would then go to either not-for-profit medical marijuana dispensaries, retail outlets or to be infused into various consumer products.

Attorney General Mike DeWine called the proposal “a stupid idea,” while Secretary of State Jon Husted said he would push “vigorously” against it should it appear on November ballots. Treasurer Josh Mandel and Auditor Dave Yost also said the idea was not good for Ohio.

The statewide officeholders spoke Thursday at a legislative preview session for journalists organized by The Associated Press.

Ohio Attorney General Mike Dewine has made good on threats to sue the federal government over a tax in the Affordable Care Act.

DeWine says a lawsuit filed in Columbus federal court today challenges the constitutionality of a $63 fee that states pay for every worker they ensure. In Ohio, fees for 85,000 workers amount to $5.3 million a year.

“(That money) could be used for education, could be used for public safety, could be used for roads and bridges…,” said DeWine spokesman Dan Tierney said last week.

The fee is part of an ACA program to stabilize premiums in the individual exchange market. DeWine calls the fee “a blatantly unconstitutional expansion of power by the federal government.” The fee is already scheduled to sunset in 2016.

The lawsuit filed by the state of Ohio and Warren County also includes the Ohio Department of Administrative Services, the University of Akron, Bowling Green State University, Shawnee State University, and Youngstown State University.

Ohio’s attorney general says he’ll continue to fight for Ohio’s gay-marriage ban even if a federal appeals court strikes it down.

Mike DeWine was speaking to the Akron Press Club the day after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review judges’ decisions striking down gay marriage bans in five other states. And the audience repeatedly asked him about the state’s defense of its own ban, now before the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. DeWine has opposed gay marriage but he says continuing the fight is his professional, not personal, concern.

“Voters of the state of Ohio voted 10 years ago by a pretty big margin to say that marriage is only between a man and a woman.

“If the voters on that same day had voted for a different constitutional amendment that said marriage could be between a man and a man or a woman and a woman, I could have defended that law just as vigorously. That’s my job as attorney general,” DeWine said.

The 6th Circuit decision is likely to lead to an appeal – either by the state or by gay-marriage advocates. That would give the U.S. Supreme Court one of its next chances to decide whether marriage is a state’s rights or a civil rights issue.

Ohio's attorney general is standing behind his decision to let the family of a man killed by police inside a Dayton-area Walmart view surveillance footage of the shooting. But John Crawford III's family want the video released publicly.

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is defending his decision to let the family members of a man killed by police inside a Dayton-area Walmart view surveillance footage of the incident.

“I thought the family had the right to have the opportunity to view it. The mom did not want to view it, which I fully understand that. The dad did, the dad viewed it. I thought that was something that we should do,” DeWine told reporters Tuesday morning.

The family of John Crawford III has called for the public release of surveillance footage. They claim Crawford’s death was unjustified. Police say he was shot for refusing to drop what turned out to be an air rifle.

DeWine says Hamilton County prosecutor Mark Piepmeier will present the case to a grand jury beginning September 22.

DeWine says Piepmeier has handled more than 100 police-involved shootings, including the 2001 shooting of Timothy Thomas that sparked riots in Cincinnati.

The controversial system rolled out last year allows police to take an image of an unknown person and run it through a database of 23 million Ohio driver’s license photos and prison mug shots to try to establish a match.

About 30,000 police officers and others could directly access the system when it was first deployed. The American Civil Liberties Union and others complained it invites abuse and privacy violations.

Access has now been cut to 5,594, according to numbers released by DeWine’s office this week. That’s a drop of 29 percent since April.